Let's read the entire run

[(un)reason]

Dragon Magazine Issue 205: May 1994


part 1/6


128 pages. Elminster shows off his stuff on the cover of this issue, while Strahd broods toweringly on the next page. How very iconic. You can bet they'll be making contributions inside as well. The theme is nothing to do with that, however. It's wilderness time again! Trompy tromp tromp. Watch out for that weather, it can be a killer in it's own right.


In this issue:


Letters: A letter praising the african articles, and wondering if they'll do any on other cultures as well. You, good sir, are in luck. Plenty of that to come, including some this issue.

A letter complaining that they don't want to double dip pay for african stuff if it's going to be collected in a book later. Well it isn't, so there. Keep buying the magazine.

A letter from a teacher trying to improve roleplaying's image and make people realise it's value in education. Good luck with that.

A bemused question about why subscriptions are handled in a different state to the rest of the company. The ways of accountancy are strange and arcane. Like sourcing food from abroad, it can be cheaper to use a bank in a completely different state, despite this seeming counterintuitive.

A letter from someone who found their infant was hypnotised by issue 200's hologram cover. Hmm. They'll be approaching 17 now. Perfect age to find being reminded of that really embarrassing. I am tempted to see if they're on facebook.


Editorial: Our art director takes the editorial this month, with Kim continuing to be disinterested in day-to day communications, and Dale unexpectedly busy with life crap. This is another of those ones that points out just how many people sending in submissions they have, and what you need to do if you want to be published. Of course, for art, we're looking at a slightly different set of criteria to writing. The biggest one, which may be a bit of a surprise, is that it's not what you're best at that'll get you the job, it's making sure you don't have any obvious technical faults that'll persistently bug people. (I suspect this is a view not shared by his successor, given the way 3e steps away from 2e's realism for a more stylised, aggressive form of artwork) Similarly, ability to make stuff that's appropriate to the articles and complements them will get you regular repeat work, while a talented but self-centered auteur should seek financial renumeration elsewhere. It's not the best that rise to the top, but the most able to network and play the system, and there's a lot of competition. Thanks for that somewhat depressing reminder.


Wraith drills in the fact that it's about people who died, but have reasons to stick around. That's a pretty strong motivator, isn't it. Careful now, don't wanna hit too close to home, otherwise people'll be uncomfortable playing it.


First quest: Karen Boomgarden is our writer this month. Unlike Jim & Roger, she's not one we've had much direct communication from before. The only one I can find is in issue 195, where she made a bit of a gaff while trying to promote For Faerie, Queen and Country. And like Roger, it seems that her early gaming experiences were more than a little silly. (and quite possibly still are) So this is a runtthrough of not just her first, but a whole bunch of the more memorable experiences in her gaming career. In the process, she has learned how to make her characters survive a little longer, just how differently people will approach the same problem, and when to duck and cover to avoid explosions. Reasonably good fun, this is another illustration of what TSR's office culture and approach to gaming is like at the moment. Do not be surprised if there are monty python quotes.


Oh for the love of. Ahh yes, one of TSR's goofier products during their last few years. Interactive audio CD's. Including First quest, the mimir, and those dreadfully forgettable soundtracks for red steel. Almost as pointless as multiple holographic covers for comics. I do not approve.


The people: Another dozen page special feature! Yup, they are definitely doing more of these this year. Having done africa last year, David Howery turns his sights on the native american setup. This is a little tricky to research due to the lack of written records, and the fact that we were destroying their original cultures pretty much as we discovered them. Still, there's more than enough to fill a magazine article. As with many milieus, it's what you leave out that's more important than what you put in, and you need to do some pretty extensive pruning to make this work. Actually, there seems to be more removed than added, which is slightly uncomfortable to me, but what can you do. There's plenty of useful stuff here, but it does feel slightly like diminishing returns compared to the african article. Still, let's have a good look at the new kits.

Eastern woodland warriors are great at stealth in their native terrain, for no particular penalty other than optimisation. They're also scary archers. One of these would definitely shape the party's combat tactics in an interesting way.

Great plains warriors are another one of those kits that gets special benefits on their horse, but then has to deal with the hassle of bringing a horse everywhere. It's not quite as big a deal as an elephant, but you aren't taking it in most dungeons. This also shows the bias towards invaders already being present. Horses were not an indigenous animal of the americas for quite some time.

Southwest desert warriors are also excellent at hiding within their natural terrain, and highly unpopular outside it. They'll never be the face for a party, but at least they're closer to balanced than the east coasters.

Shamen are pretty much as you'd expect. Esa good. E's are good. He's Ebenezer Goode. They're good with nature spells, and can summon animals to make sure the tribe doesn't starve.

Mystery Men are the sole wizard archetype, distrusted but tolerated, like wizards in many places. They have no real penalties apart from lack of formal tuition, and their social benefits won't be particularly relevant as adventurers. All pretty meh really.

Tribal Scouts also show how the conventional D&D class system is a bit of a shoehorn here. Since so many of their skills won't be commonly used, they get to ignore the usual limits on hyperspecialising. This means they're invaluable at low level, but may struggle at higher level, unless you allow them to pick up optional thief skills like the Dark Sun ones.

Plenty of magic items too. Snake belts let you turn into a rattlesnake. As usual, I have to hope the DM will give you full poison privileges and not nerf you.

Calling stones are another item that seems pointless to an adventurer, but invaluable for a community. Hopefully they'll just give it up after retrieving it, thus saving the poor beleaguered tribe from starvation.

Medicine fire is a shamanic bundle that gives you a whole bunch of fire based blasty spells and protection. It may be the most common attack type, but it'll still impress the average native.

Tribal lances only work for members of the tribe, and terrify the people fighting them. The kind of thing that'll really annoy players when they find they can't profit from it later.

Pipe tomohawks are implements of war and peace, forcing honesty at pow wows from all who smoke it. Yeah, I can see that being responsible for more than a few wars.

Bison skull totems boost all the villagers around when properly mounted, plus giving their shaman a bunch of fairly wide-ranging nature spells. They're another one you probably won't be able to loot as well, making players all the more keen to hunt down every last one of them if they're on the other side.

On top of that, there's the idea of minor magical items that only work for the intended person, possibly handed down through family lines. You see them pop up all over the world, but without commerce, they're particularly common here. As before, the whole thing doesn't seem quite as gameable as the African setup, but it's certainly not terrible. The crunch definitely needed a second editorial pass though.

 

[David Howery]

my article was originally a LOT longer, but Dale was forced to cut huge chunks of it to fit it into the magazine.

Both the African and N. American articles actually started out as much shorter Greyhawk specific articles on Hepmonaland and the Rovers of the Barrens. The Hempmonaland one was actually accepted and being readied for publication when the magazine staff got word on just what the Greyhawk Wars boxed set would include (basically, both articles I'd written were just made obsolete). Roger suggested I redo both as generic articles on the two base cultures, so I did that (after a heck of a lot of research). I had gotten the okay to do a similar article on India, and had done a fair amount of research and writing, when 3E came along and I fell out of D&D gaming in general; I only had two more articles in Dragon after this one...

 

[(un)reason]

Dragon Magazine Issue 205: May 1994


part 2/6


Getting back to nature: Oooh, an extensive semiofficial rules revision in the magazine. We haven't had many of those since Gary left. Jon Pickens starts picking apart the cleric and druid spell lists, with a little help from Skip. Druids have lost some of their important 1e spells due to the choice of spheres they were put in. Meanwhile, generalist clerics look grossly overpowered compared to wizards, and most speciality priests. And a couple of the spheres are pretty much useless as is, particularly Astral. So he sets about majorly rejigging the sphere lists. All needs quite a few more, like Dispel magic. Elemental stuff gets a serious reworking, as do creation, charm and divination. The difference between guardian and protection is discussed. Necromancy and healing likewise get a discussion on the awkwardness caused by the positioning of certain spells, and how it affects clerics trying to do their job. Summoning and sun also need a bit of filling in. This all seems pretty well thought out. Course, ironically, it makes both clerics and druids more powerful as well, which isn't such a great idea. But as long as people think of them as support classes, they'll continue to not use them to their full game overtaking potential. This is one I'd be particularly interested in hearing actual play reports on what happened when applied.


Arcane lore: Jon Pickens continues to draw upon the past and try and tune up the divine spell lists. If this was a bit more innovative, it'd be pretty close to a classic special feature. Even as it is, it's pretty useful, deliberately concentrating on the less used spheres.

Seal of Destiny shields the recipient from any divinations that would determine their future. This is less fiat limited than it would initially seem, but still varies widely in usefulness based on your campaign style.

Alter Luck gives you rerolls, as is standard for luck effects. You'll still need at least a moderate amount of real world luck for this to be useful then.

Windbearer is an interesting variation on levitation that'll let a whole party go up an awkward shaft. Careful getting off. Set a whole bunch of these in your lair for fun zeldaesque puzzles.

Calm Winds is a bit of limited weather control for those clerics who aren't high enough level for the full package. Typical that you would get the dull stuff before the interesting like weather summoning.

Clean Air is also a lifesaver, but not very impressive. Still, if it keeps you from being railroaded into module A4, you're going to be pretty happy you picked it that day. This is the joy of having lots of new spells to select from supplements.

Conjure Air Elemental is one of your basic symmetry fillers. Not really worth mentioning.

Whirlwind is the air equivalent of earthquake, your basic 7th level elemental devastator. Clerics may take a bit longer to get the AoE spells, but they certainly don't lack them.

Precipitation is from Unearthed Arcana. Another minor weather effect making it drizzle a bit, it's been changed a bit due to the lack of segments in 2nd ed, and the rules on what it actually does mechanically are a bit clearer. A typical 2nd ed revision then, for good and bad.

Cloudburst is also a rescued UA scrappy. It gets pretty much the same treatment. Enjoy raining on people's parades.

Tsunami is a second bit of elemental symmetry. Whatever elemental god you serve, you'll be able to kick ass righteously at high levels. Not that that's a great surprise if you've been picking up Dark Sun or Al-Qadim stuff.

Animate Statue is lower level and less versatile than animate object, but may actually be better as a combat spell. After all, it'll probably last longer than a combat, and immunity to nonmagical weapons counts for quite a lot. Course, there is the issue of finding a nonmagical statue in a dungeon. Perhaps you should bring your own in your pack and enlarge them when needed.

Lesser & Greater Guardian Seal keep various supernatural creatures out, as you would expect. Basically just an extended customisable protection from evil, it shows why the guardian sphere is underfilled. You need a more sadistic imagination for nasty triggered effects like Symbol has my dear.

Imbue Purpose answers the question of what spell you need to make weapons with extra plusses against specific creatures. It's reasonably kick-ass and customisable, as you would expect, but rather expensive. Better get investing to make it permanent if you want to save in the long run.

Inner Sanctum is your basic scrying and teleportation blocker, albeit rather high level. Another one you can profit highly from making permanent, possibly for other people as well, as this kind of thing is much in demand by the rich and diabolical.

Ancient Curse is from Oriental Adventures. It not only s you over, but your descendants as well. One that certainly hasn't been nerfed in the slightest.

Shield of the Archons is a high level spell deflector of so-so power for it's level. It will be reprinted soon in planes of law, making it all the more official. Good to see this article got drawn upon as well as drawing upon. Makes it feel more like a proper thread of history.

Warmth gives nonelementalists shielding against cold effects. There's more than one route and reason to get an effect, especially where gods of odd portfolios are involved.

Sunburst splats undead and dazzles everyone else. Another one that would go into common use in the future. This is proving to be a pretty influential article actually.

Crown of Brilliance is another one that would become common knowledge among Archons in Planes of Law and get a whole bunch of various power variants as well. So with both familiar faces from the past, and soon to be familiar faces in the future, this article is both useful and full of nostalgia. A pleasure to be reminded of, really.


Rifts gets a sourcebook making gods playable too! Now everyone'll want to play them. Man, that guy has a lot of arms.

 

[Marius Delphus]

I used the Jon Pickens article as the springboard for a major sphere reorg of my own. By the end of 2E, I had roped in a large number of sources and an immense number of spells. Nowadays I'd just set something up in Excel, but back in the day my brother wrote a little DOS program that could manage a priest's spell list. Good times.

 

[Orius]

Getting back to nature: Oooh, an extensive semiofficial rules revision in the magazine. We haven't had many of those since Gary left. Jon Pickens starts picking apart the cleric and druid spell lists, with a little help from Skip. Druids have lost some of their important 1e spells due to the choice of spheres they were put in. Meanwhile, generalist clerics look grossly overpowered compared to wizards, and most speciality priests. And a couple of the spheres are pretty much useless as is, particularly Astral. So he sets about majorly rejigging the sphere lists... This is one I'd be particularly interested in hearing actual play reports on what happened when applied.

I suppose this might have been the precusor to the sphere re-org that appeared in Spells and Magic.

 

[(un)reason]

Dragon Magazine Issue 205: May 1994


part 3/6


The role of books: The legend of nightfall by Mickey Zucker Reichert is a fairly low-key fantasy detective story, who's protagonist can alter his density. This minor magic is of course used inventively throughout the story and allows them to develop his personality better than someone with godlike power. Fairly common story. Escalate to epic to soon and you lose people.

The imperium game by K D Wentworth is another novel that shows the arrival of MMORPG's was anticipated by quite a few writers. This one gets picked apart though, because it's economy doesn't hold up. If people are spending virtually their whole lives playing the game, how are they affording doing so. I think neither the writer or the reviewer fully realise how much costs are going to come down, or how addictive real MMO's can be. Many people do wreck their lives and live off their parents or unemployment benefit for years to spend 20+ hours a day on them. Reality is stranger than fiction.

Fallen heroes by Dafydd ab Hugh is a Star Trek DS9 novel where nearly everyone dies. Of course, this being Star Trek, time travel is involved, and the reset button is pushed by the end of the story. Hey ho. At least it's well done this time, with characterisations being accurate and events not seeming gratuitous.

Indiana Jones and the white witch by Martin Caidin, on the other hand, does not manage to sound like the Indy we know from the films. Way too much exposition, and too little action. And no sexual tension at all? That's no good. :shakes head:

A college of magics by Caroline Stevermer is a little more technologicaly advanced than the average medieval fantasy, while not being quite modern or cyberpunk. Regencypunk? Sounds good to me.

Crown of fire by Ed Greenwood shows that he isn't quite as palatable over the course of an entire novel as he is in magazine articles. Elminster's voice grates on our reviewer, while the plotting ironically seems like it would work better as a module than a novel. It's like reading about a macguffin hunt from the PoV of the macguffin? Iiinteresting.


Rumblings: Ooh. A sighting of Gary! Admittedly, it's because TSR sued his ass over the Dangerous Journeys game, but still, first time in a few years. Everyone is happy about the resolution? When said resolution is not only the game ceasing production, but TSR acquiring all the rights, I very much doubt Gary or GDW have the same opinion of this outcome. A little googling shows that this is another case where they bombarded them with lawyers, and probably would have lost the court case, if it were not for the fact that they had far more money to throw at the problem, forcing them to settle out of court to avoid bankruptcy. Truly a case where our evil overmistress (roll of thunder, wolves howl) worked to justify her appellation.

The rest of our gossip isn't nearly as interesting. Dragon magazine is getting a spanish edition. I wonder how long that'll last. WEG is making an indiana jones RPG. White wolf are following TSR into the novel business, quite profitably too. Margaret Weis is working on a star wars book. Lace and steel has a new publisher. Some companies are flourishing, others are suffering. Have you backed the right horse, or are we all onto a loser here really.


Immortal! What colour of pretentiousness will you specialize in? Oh wonder of worlds that gives us something so incredibly easily mockable. It's all coming back to me now!


The plane truth: Our third and final instalment of the teasers takes things in a very dramatic horror direction. They may be making the planes more accessible, but it's still full of powerful and alien things that can completely mess up your life if you meddle with them. The codex of the infinite planes is one of those things. You meddle in it, you risk a fate worse than death, and making the lives of many others miserable in the process. Gods are another thing you need to tread carefully around. They might be one of the primary employers, but they aren't known for their generous severance packages. (severance of your package, on the other hand) So this serves well as both a teaser and a warning. You have plenty of cool stuff to explore, but don't expect to be able to waltz out here and kill your way through every problem. Your DM should make sure this place remains wondrous and scary even at the highest levels. Now git yerselves a-buyin'.


Forum: Patrick J. Dolan brings the real world perspective of an army chaplain into the paladin debate. Important in the process of sparing and treating enemies is making sure they're no longer a threat. This may be a bit harder in a fantasy world, but you still don't torture and kill a defenceless person. The ends do not justify the means. I'll bet he hated what the US army became after 9/11.

Dan Cuomo seems to have a somewhat lower standard of what counts as an unredeemable monster. Assassins and evil clerics fit into this category. I radiate dubiousness at this suggestion.

Alan Clark is another person who makes sure his paladins hand people over to the judgement of the law rather than killing where feasible.

Craig Hilton encourages you to spell out exactly what lawful good means in your campaign before you start. That'll at least deal with half the arguments, as they won't be transgressing from ignorance. And don't set them traps just to strip them of their powers. That kind of adversarial play is just asking for trouble.

Alan Lauderdale gives us one of those letters that replies to half a dozen recent topics. But foremost of these is the alignment one. The rules are a gross oversimplification, and need some GM attention to make everything work. That is why D&D isn't a computer game.

Paul Peterson turns defining morality for a campaign into an entire session in itself, requiring short essays from each of the players. Yeesh. Well, it'll solve that problem, but have fun trying to get all the players to join in. This sounds altogether too much like hard work for my liking.


Eye of the monitor: Gateway II: Homeworld is a text adventure with still shots to show you what's going on. It doesn't get a very good review, being noth primitive and rather unfair in design. Without the hint book, you're unlikely to be able to finish this.

The hand of fate is not a licence of Manos, (unfortunately) just another fantasy adventure game where you point and click, selecting options off a list. It is a bit slow and easy, but Sandy likes it anyway. There are far worse in the genre.

Dungeon Hack is rather more unusual. An upgrade of the roguelike principle, using the AD&D rules, it has lots of customisability, which means you can control the challenge level pretty well. And of course, near infinite replayability, as long as you don't mind the puzzles being basically the same after a while. This definitely sounds quite cool.

Dark Sun: The Shattered Lands gets the same marks, but a less positive review. It's interesting, but also hard and grindy. Save frequently, blah blah blah. It's a shame CRPG's do have to be more combat centric than good tabletop ones can manage.

 

[Jhaelen]

Dungeon Hack is rather more unusual. An upgrade of the roguelike principle, using the AD&D rules, it has lots of customisability, which means you can control the challenge level pretty well. And of course, near infinite replayability, as long as you don't mind the puzzles being basically the same after a while. This definitely sounds quite cool.

While it may sound cool, it was actually incredibly boring (imho, of course). Any ascii-based rogue-like game was infinitely more fun and offered more variety.

It wouldn't be until Diablo that we'd get a graphically pleasing upgrade that was fun to play and highly replayable. Thanks to the active modding scene, Diablo truly offered infinite replayability.

 

[(un)reason]

Dragon Magazine Issue 205: May 1994


part 4/6


Libram X introduces the macguffin, and the retro-cyberzombie. Even if this isn't set in the same universe as the planescape cosmology, it certainly uses quite a bit of the same tone. Which isn't a bad thing.


Sage advice: What level can bugbear shamans be (7)

What level can voadkyn druids be (5)

Can humanoids become bards or not (Most of them can only become the nerfed bard kit in the book. Skip has forgotten this, and makes a dodgy ruling)

How high a level can alaghi shamans get (6)

Can you permanance wildfire (no, and it wouldn't do much good anyway)

What's the range of speak with dead (1 yard. Corpses don't have very good hearing. )

Can item shrink a living creature. How about dead creatures. How about fire ( no, no and yes)

My wizards want to put plate mail on after using up their spells for the day. (Well they can't. They're not properly trained, and they'll collapse like schoolkids forced to hike a hundred miles with a fifty pound backpack. Plus, who's carrying the armour when they're not wearing it? Doesn't that impede their fighting usefulness somewhat)

There are maps missing in FRS1 (Skip will solve that. Skip is more than used to dealing with this little problem. )

Gauntlets of ogre power, girdles of giant strength and warhammers stack?! Isn't that broken? (Yes, but you've gotta use all three simultaneously, or no go. Someone back in 1st ed really liked Thor, and we've never bothered to clean out that bit of exception based design because it's cool.)

Do psionic attacks go twice against non psionic opponents (Yes. This isn't as great as it seems)

Can psionics and magic work together (not easily. Magic is from mars, and psionics from venus. Relationships will be filled with misunderstandings. )

Why doesn't mind blank completely protect you from psionics (Be thankful it provides any protection at all. You know they normally don't work on each other at all. )

You got dark sun scroll creation wrong! (Skip apologizes profusely. Please don't cut Skip's pagecount or retcon Skip, oh mighty TSR overlords. Skip assures you that Skip will do better next time. Skip has kept up on his godly duties, expanding on the gods of nehwon. Isn't that worth something? )


Fiction: Cap Revoort's luck by Daniel Hood. A sequel to the story in issue 195, this manages to answer the ambiguity left at the end of that story quite nicely, while still working as a standalone. It also highlights the dilemma of the swashbuckler's luck, where you are destined to accomplish great things and have legendary adventures, but the flipside of that is that you never get to live a quiet life, and the people and things around you that aren't so blessed will suffer lots of collateral damage as they're swept into your wake. It may be pure advantage from the PoV of a person playing them, but from the perspective of the character themselves, the constant drama can be a bit tiresome. As with the previous story, the character dynamics are pretty good as well, and there's plenty of implications that there's a wider world built up by the writer's notes, ready to go if needed. This is one campaign setting I could definitely stand to see a bit more of. We won't se it here though, unless the Freeport referred to repeatedly is the same one Green Ronin did quite nicely out of in the early d20 era. Let's check this. Doesn't look like it. Damn overcommon names.


It's never too early: Or once again, we have awesome plans for our conventions! Book now, otherwise you might miss out! Q is our special guest! More than 10,000 dollars worth of prizes to be won! Roleplaying and board games aplenty! (note that wargaming is now subsumed into the board game stuff, another sign of it's decline) An open gaming library that you can use to browse books and check out for use in games! (what are the odds many of them'll be missing by the end) And tons of stuff that's exclusive to RPGA members, so sign up now! Meh. More pure promotion. Like christmas, it seems to come earlier and earlier every year.


12 secrets of survival: Ooh. A collection of toys by Spike Y Jones. He's generally pretty good. Although not at math, apparently, as there's 13 things detailed in this article, not 12. Maybe it's the editor's fault. Maybe they meant 12a secrets, in the way that some buildings skip the 13th floor because it's bad luck. Either way, it's amusingly facepalm worthy.

Amulets of catnaps allow you to sleep in small bursts and still retain full functionality. For a couple of days anyway. Then, like most magic items of this sort, they'll start causing problems. Sleep seems to be one of the hardest things to get rid of completely in D&D worlds.

Armor of restful sleep lets you do the paranoid adventurer thing and stay fully protected in the roughest of terrain without having backache afterwards. Now you'll never get them out of it.

Exposure salve protects you from the elements for up to a full week. Well, you know how tiresome it gets having to apply makeup properly every day and wash it off before going to bed. Like the previous one, this'll save quite a bit of time on a day to day basis if you can get hold of it.

Eyes of the condor let you see as if you were soaring high above your location, getting a birds eye view that can be quite handy tactically. Just don't try to operate stuff at the same time, for perspective shifts make you clumsy and quite possibly nauseous.

Otiluke's survival sphere lets you encase yourself in an airtight bubble that also provides for your needs when active. It can be rolled around by the occupants or anyone around, so it won't make you totally safe from monsters and hazards, but a giant invincible hamsterball makes you able to explore more safely than normal, and is also a thoroughly amusing visual. I love it.

Pavilions of plenty are a somewhat larger device that also gives you a full food supply, and some protection from the elements. It even has it's own inbuilt butler, who can probably tell you all sorts of stories about what trips other adventurers took it on. Be careful packing and unpacking it though, or it will gradually lose it's value.

Potions of camel thirst are another thing that allow you to defer, but not eliminate your bodily needs, with diminishing returns setting in when overused. Still, the comedy value of drinking several week's worth of water to make up for your deprivation is quite appealing to me, so you can definitely go in my game.

Stone Cloaks let you disguise yourself as a rock when wrapped around you, a la morgan le fay. Like many transformations, there's the danger of coming to think like the thing you've become, which isn't very good for rocks. Could be a looong time before you turn back if that happens.

A straw of breathing makes sure you have an air supply on the other end no matter where you go. Which will leave you looking like a yokel when sucking this out of the corner of your mouth all the time in space, but hey, better ridiculous than dead, as we've said before. (and contradicted ourselves on a few times - it's such a hard decision.)

Sun Cloaks are of course very helpful in dealing with inclement weather. They do have a catch though. You wear it one way to stay warm, and inside out to stay cool. Put it on the wrong way round by mistake, and you'll be suffering twice as quickly. What are the odds someone'll do that while in a hurry to pack, particularly if there's monsters around?

Sustain fire makes anything you set alight burn for 10 times as long before being consumed. Along with the obvious use in dungeon delving and cooking, this also seems usable as both a torture device, and ironically, a last ditch protection should you happen to find yourself plunged into the elemental plane of fire unprepared. Gotta love those low key utility spells that encourage you to use your brain.

Rainfire prevents your fire from being put out even by being plunged fully underwater. If used to set someone's hair alight, you can bet they won't be happy about that.

Rainshield deflects any water from above, allowing your cleric to keep their dignity, and maybe even their life if acid is involved. Another of those utility spells that doesn't sound too impressive, but certainly makes things a lot more comfortable. Now, if only they'd remembered to include a sphere listing for it. So this article does have lots of cool, useful and funny things, but also some seriously sloppy editing marring the product. What's with that?

 

[(un)reason]

Dragon Magazine Issue 205: May 1994


part 5/6


The game wizards: As hinted earlier, it's time for Ravenloft's new edition. Which means it's promotional article time, as is now the norm for their major releases of the month. In it we see a certain degree of sympathy for the devil, as happens far too often with vampires. Strahd tried to be a good and just ruler all his life. He would never have fallen if it weren't for that bitch Tatyana teasing him and then rejecting him! Silly silly fangirls. That aside, this basically just fills in what's been happening over the past few years in game metaplotwise, and what's in the new boxed set. Nothing too surprising. Another healthy gameline chugging along here. We can move on and not worry about it collapsing when we take our eyes off it, unlike Azalin with his plots.


Dragon slayers: Council of wyrms! Another of the ambitious but ultimately horribly flawed products released during the final days of TSR. And another article of cut material directly from the official writers. Now obviously, in the CoW setting, dragon slayers are intended as NPC's, but in most other campaign settings, they'd be just fine for players, if a bit specialised and not nearly as useful against any other type of monster. As with Spike's article, this is a grab bag of stuff, including a selection of expansions for the existing dragon slayer kit, a new kit, and a new monster. 5 new special attacks for dragon slayers are the first thing, which is aided by the option to spend your proficiency slots on getting more of them instead of weapons. As with any specialisation, this is cool, but facing creatures not subject to them will give you problems. More options give you more chances to screw your life up.

Slayer-mages have some pretty extensive benefits and penalties, even more than their fighter counterparts. Not just good at killing them, they also get to communicate with them and control them. Well, as wizards, they are more prone to taking the wider view and thinking about things instead of rushing in. That doesn't make them any less dracicial though, as they need regular supplies of their body parts for their spells to function at full power. Let's hope the DM allows lesser draconic things like pseudodragons and hybrids like chimeras to count for that criteria, otherwise they'll have an exceedingly hard time at lower level, and missions'll grow tedious over the course of a campaign.

Undead dragon slayers reuse the skeleton warrior picture, which makes sense even if it is a bit cheap of them. After all, they do have a lot in common, and are frequently called back from the grave by some jackass who doesn't really care about them. Another bit of crunch that won't be that necessary in most games, but it's nice to know it's there.


Role-playing reviews: GURPS Vampire: the Masquerade gets thoroughly praised for taking the great themes of Masquerade, and marrying them to the solid mechanics of GURPS, while being visually better than the average book in either line. Concepts that were originally shrouded in pretentiousness are clearly explained. And of course you have a far greater range of other genres to cross over stuff with. What's not to like? Now they just need to take those lessons and transfer them back to the main line next edition.

Dark alliance: Vancouver sets Vampires vs Werewolves to the fore, with the two factions fully aware of each other, and sharing the city uneasily. The kind of thing they'd consciously step away from in revised edition, this is marred by both silliness and vagueness, with much of the location stuff feeling like it was lifted straight from a tourism handbook. If you're going to do regionbooks, getting a writer who actually lives there does help.

Caerns: Places of power does slightly better, but it seems like their best ideas are the ones that are developed the least. They're able to just throw away all kinds of cool adventure seeds, leaving it up to you to turn them into full encounters. Ahh, the folly of young game designers. Soon your skills will be greater, but your inspirations fewer, and you'll wish you hadn't been so casual with your talent in the past.

Umbra: the velvet shadow shows that White Wolf can match TSR in their imaginative otherworldly realms quite handily. From the heights of the cosmos, to the lowest, most defiled atrocity realm, there's tons of highly adventurable locations for werewolves and mages to explore. The further away from reality you step, the freer the rein you have as a writer.

House of strahd gets the full 6 pips on the review die. It was already a classic. Now it's bigger, better described, and with more DM aids to help the horror proceed smoothly. Good luck, you'll need it.

Castles forlorn doesn't do quite as well. As a setting, it's pretty amazing, but it is very much up to the DM to construct an adventure out of the locations and denizens of this place. Just leaving them to wander around will be a confusing and frustrating experience, for it's not likely they'll figure out how to deal with this darklord permanently without a few clues. Well, maybe they can just escape with their lives to tell chilling tales instead. Isn't that the Ravenloft spirit?


Bears Vs Sharks in Dragonmirth! Yamara and Stress try their damndest to figure out how to get rid of Ogrek. Twilight empire finally comes to an end, but is left open for a sequel. Did everything turn out the way the real big bad wanted it too anyway?

 

[(un)reason]

Dragon Magazine Issue 205: May 1994


part 6/6


Through the looking glass: The lead bill is overturned! Yay! Course, coming well after the 11th hour, this technical victory is still a loss in real world terms. Which is really the worst possible outcome, as it leaves both the advocates and defenders frustrated and unhappy. The only people who win are the lawyers. Bah. I'm repeating myself aren't I. Nevertheless, the problem remains deeply entrenched in the system. I don't see a solution coming any time soon. And as I'm not in a position to make the problem work to my advantage, ( I may be able to master legions of arcane rules, but I don't really have the public speaking ability or interpersonal skills to make a good lawyer) I shall keep complaining.

Back to the minis though. A marine standing on top of an armoured vehicle, defending it from all comers. A trio of skeletal musicians, playing drums, flute and bagpipes. Yeah, you know the overlord is truly evil when they make their minions play bagpipes. Two heavily armoured futuristic soldiers. Their heads are obscured, so they'll be easily reduced to mooks in the face of real heroes. A rather malformed earth elemental, approaching close enough to humanoid that it's starting to go down the uncanny valley. Dracula and a werewolf, a little late for halloween. A dragon having a good snooze. Two more dragons in flight, quite possibly about to fight. Some rather heavily armed and armoured space rangers, with spare weapons so you can customise them. A whole bunch of flags and standards, that you can again use to make your minis army look more professional. A vaguely enterpriseish little spaceship, designed to serve as an escort to larger ones. And a trio of non-cheesecake female rangers, ready and able for kicking butt and trekking through the wilderness. Sci-fi seems to be doing better in minis than it is in RPG's these days.


Ral Partha does a newspaper style advert. Nice to see one of them pop up again.


TSR Previews: Looks like I spoke too soon last month. Barely 3 years since the last basic D&D set, they release another one, entitled The classic Dungeons & Dragons game. Once again, I am curious as to how this version differs from the previous ones.

AD&D, as usual, is stuffed to the gills. First up is another spectacular boxed set opening up a new world and milieu. Council of Wyms! Finally, you can play as a dragon. A substantially nerfed dragon in comparison to NPC ones, but a dragon nonetheless. Now, um, what do we do next adventurewise? How do we compensate for the truly ludicrous XP requirement disparities? Oh well, can't fault them for trying, just the execution.

A third boxed set this month as well, the revised Ravenloft setting. They too have been busy metaplotting away, and now the world has been substantially rearranged, with somewhat less nerdrage than Dark Sun or Greyhawk. Get another set of tarroka cards as well. Meanwhile on the novel front, they get Mordenheim, by Chet Williamson. Venture to the far north with two amateur necromancers who really don't know what they're doing, and see the Aaaangsty history of the monster and his maker in much greater detail. Who next?

And Al-Qadim gives us a 4th, somewhat thinner boxed set. Jesus H their printers and assemblers must be working flat out. Cities of Bone would fit right in in Ravenloft. Still, at least here it's easier to escape the desolate desert horrors stuck in their eternal routine and get some benefit from the treasure.

Planescape starts it's first adventure, The eternal boundary. See the fun you can have without even leaving sigil. Really, the adventures come to you.

The Forgotten realms gets "Marco" Volo: Departure. A fake Volo? Who'd want to claim responsibility for writing that stuff? A wacky adventure for low level characters? I'm hating it already. Shoo.

Our setting free AD&D books this month are PHBR12: The complete paladin's handbook, and Temple, Tower and Tomb. See Rick Swan fail to do as well to expand their characterisation as he did for rangers. See three nasty little dungeons and try to survive. Then maybe you have a chance in the tomb of horrors. Maybe.

The Amazing Engine updates one of the oldest settings they have, in Metamorphosis alpha to omega. It's been a loooong time since we visited the Starship Warden. This should be interesting.

Endless quest is getting Al-Qadimish, with Secret of the Djinn. Rescue the king of the genies? Oh boy. A tall task for a young pearl diver. Can you guide him the right way?

And finally, wackiness seems prevalent in the books department too. Captains Outrageous by Roy V Young. The world is about to be destroyed because the court jester offended the court wizard, and his three musketeers have to foil him. Oh boy. Can I skip this one.


Spellfire occupies the back page. Yes, TSR are now officially in the collectable trading card game business. Yet another sign of their impending doom appears on the horizon.


Another issue full of contrasts. There's some great articles here, but even they have some elementary editing errors. There's also a lot of promotional articles, some of which manage to be quite good, but the fact that they're custom-ordered by the company rather than reader submissions is also very obvious. It makes me feel that the magazine is probably being interfered with more by the people in charge of finances, which means the editors are distracted and having to add and remove things at the last minute. It's all rather unsatisfactory as a complete product. They've managed to get through it before, but with sales dropping, will the noose tighten upon them? The 18th birthday would be an ironic time to lose a bunch of your independence. But that's for next time, as I've said many a time before.